Lebanon.

Alison Ruttan’s work is about genetic destiny. Inside the three Michigan Avenue galleries of the Chicago Cultural Center, we see how human nature plays havoc with communities through two parallel series.

It’s unfortunate, then, that the lessons I got out of Here and Elsewhere, the New Museum’s current exhibition of art from the Arab World, weren’t the least bit challenging. We’re told contemporary art should look like other contemporary art and exhibitions, and that if that art is political, it should reference past events. That’s not much of a lesson plan.